


Crimson Silk

by Tipsylex



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anomalous Staplers, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dubious Consent, Empathic Senses, F/M, Mind Control, Mind Reading, Near Death Experience, Sensory Overload, Values Dissonance, Vampire Sex, former prostitution, our vampires are different, painful transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-27 18:13:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsylex/pseuds/Tipsylex
Summary: "Back up. Slowly, eyes on me", Elias says, and the cultist obeys. They want him for the information in his head, and he's already been in their collar once before; he doesn't relish a repeat performance.But he's already starting to feel dizzy, so a prolonged standoff isn't going to end in his favour.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lisagarland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisagarland/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Take Care of the Unseen Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156940) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida). 
  * Inspired by [The Devil You Don't](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16279829) by [Triss_Hawkeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/pseuds/Triss_Hawkeye). 



> My profound thanks go to the brilliant Yaphre who helped me make this story better than it was.

A moment of disorientation and Elias is through the mirror, blinking at the sudden change in light. With the cultists hot on his heels, he’d had no time to check what was on the other side; he’s on a street, no crowd he can blend in with, no easy entrances, no places to hide. No nearby vehicles except for a motorcycle, which is likely enough the mirror that he popped out of, and he’s honestly shocked that he managed to get through it on his own; he’s only done this once before, and with Harold’s help at that.

Hopefully, his distraction has helped keep Harold safe, and kept the cultists at bay while Harold, John, and Nathan found their own way out of the Library. But that’s the extent of what Elias can do for his friends, and now he’s got his own safety to think about. The Order wants him for the information in his head, and he’s already been in their collar once before; he doesn’t relish a repeat performance.

Even at his best, he’s still an aging man who’d never been athletic even in his prime, so he’s got little chance of outrunning a bunch of punks who’ve got youth and fanaticism on their side. And that’s without being shot; the twinge in his side is growing more insistent, and he’s trying to ignore the growing wet spot until he’s got time to attempt some first aid.

The only place that looks promising is the entrance to an alleyway, so he sprints in that direction, the laptop bag throwing off his stride with every step. Harold’s bag. Pragmatism says to drop it somewhere, but he doesn’t want the cultists (or anyone else) to get hold of it; maybe get into Harold’s secrets.

Of course, if they catch him while he’s still carrying it, they’ll know to look into it. But he’s not the type to bank on worst-case scenarios.

He hasn’t quite turned the corner when he hears a shout behind him; they’ve definitely seen him now. Whirling, he tucks in close to the corner and takes a few careful shots, bringing down a couple of the cultists and making the rest a little more cautious in their pursuit. There are maybe half a dozen left, though he can’t get an accurate count like this, and there may be more on the way.

Retreating, he ducks behind a dumpster, breathing hard, all too aware that he didn’t bring enough bullets for a proper firefight. And there’s no chance of the cavalry arriving; he’s never had that many friends, and the last few he has left are, he hopes, somewhere on the other side of the city and well out of the reach. Even if it means that he’s on his own.

With any luck, they’ll all survive, and he’ll have an epic tale to entertain Nathan the next time they get to share a little down time.

The dumpster gives him enough cover to take out four more of his pursuers before his gun runs dry. Three left; not good. He’s still got his ace in the hole, though it’s more like a jack because it doesn’t work if there’s more than one enemy (he found that out the hard way, back when Anthony was still alive). And he’s already starting to feel dizzy, so a prolonged standoff isn’t going to end in his favour.

Well… when you can’t rely on guns or anomalous tech, there’s always psychology. He curses and throws his gun down, pressing one hand against his bleeding side and letting out a groan, his harsh breaths deliberately audible in the tense quiet of the alley.

As hoped for, the cultists draw in closer, not abandoning caution altogether, but more sure of their prey. Which at least gets them in range; when one guy comes around the corner of the dumpster, Elias grits his teeth against the pain and swings Harold’s bag right at the guy’s head, instantly taking him down. Unfortunately, the guy’s gun goes skittering down the alley, far out of reach. But the second cultist doesn’t clue in fast enough, and Elias manages to hit him as well, the heavy laptop dropping him straight to the pavement.

The final cultist approaches more cautiously, pressing close against the side of the dumpster to make a small target. Not that it’s going to help him; the moment the second cultist drops, Elias has his stapler in his hand, and he’s moving around the dumpster into sight, relishing the terrified look in the last cultist’s eyes.

“Drop it,” Elias said firmly, and the cultist throws the gun reflexively… behind Elias, who can’t pause to see where it went. Damn.

Stalemate, and one with a time limit; even the slight weight of the anomalous stapler is starting to feel heavy, Elias’s arm dipping slightly before he catches himself. If he loses his confidence, or the victim thinks he’s not likely to fire, then the whole charade is up: The stapler is powered by the victim’s fear. And he can’t make the guy turn around, because the minute the cultist loses sight of the stapler, he’s going to forget the hold it had over him.

“Back up. Slowly, eyes on me,” Elias says, and the cultist obeys. But it’s too late for what Elias had been planning; his knees are getting weaker, and he stumbles sideways to lean against the dumpster, breathing hard.

And then there are hurried footsteps, and shouts, and more cultists quickly pour into the alley. The one nearest him shakes himself, as if suddenly not sure why he’d been so frightened of an aging, wounded man without even a gun, and rushes Elias, grabbing him by the arm.

Seconds later, with no strength left to resist, Elias is being held between two cultists, one of them pulling the laptop bag off his shoulder. He’s a little glad to be rid of the weight; his worries about Harold’s secrets are starting to seem very far away. Besides, surely a man as paranoid as Harold is wouldn’t have a laptop that’s easy to crack open.

Too bad the same can’t be said of Elias’s brain. He may have been in hiding for the past few months, but he’s still been keeping tabs on the hidden side of the city; he knows the major figures of the black market, and can point to whole stockpiles of anomalous items, along with dozens of people that The Order (not to mention the Foundation) would love to get their hands on. He’d rather bleed out than give them that kind of information, but he’s not so far gone that they can’t get him back to their base in time to heal him up and stick him in a collar.

Weakly, he struggles, not so much to escape as in the slim hope that he’ll bleed out a little faster. But the hands gripping his arms tighten as the rest of the cultists close in, and then they’re pushing him back against the wall, forcing something wet and cold and bitter into his mouth.

Almost instantly, he’s dizzy, his eyes going fuzzy as his whole body loses what strength it had left, and only the hands on his arms keep him from collapsing entirely.

As they start dragging his dead weight back toward the street, his head lolls backwards and he sees, behind him, the cultists, upside-down in his view, and then, behind them… a flash of black and red, falling across his vision and almost instantly a quick tap of red on the shoulder of the cultist bringing up the rear.

It takes Elias a moment to process what’s happening, as a slim hand with sharp red nails, takes the cultist and drags him up into the air, just a foot off the ground, he’s already limp in the arms of something that’s got its fangs in his throat.

Elias doesn’t have the power to scream, but even if he did, he’d probably just stay quiet and let this happen, the cultists getting picked off and fed on so silently that the rest of them don’t notice until it’s far too late. The creature—no, he can see it now, it’s a woman, though obviously she’s something more than human—lays the third body down just as silently as she snatched it up, her long auburn hair swirling about her, slinky red dress rippling as she moves in again.

It’s down to the two cultists who are carrying Elias, and the two in front of them, when the woman lands and says something, only Elias is too far gone to make out the words. The cultists react, though, dropping him to the concrete, and he dully blinks up at the exchange, or at least the little section he can see without being able to move his head.

They fan out a bit, as if to defend against her, but the two in his field of view are clearly terrified, and rightfully so. Within moments, another one of them falls beside him, neck snapped and eyes staring, and the woman is holding the laptop bag, on just one finger, as if the weight meant nothing to her.

In the short exchange between the woman and the cultists, Elias does manage to make out one word: _Harold_.

The word should mean something to Elias, but he’s fading. It’s hard to even keep his eyes open, and he’s starting to feel very cold… all except for his side, which feels wet and warm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Do you want to die?_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Does it look like I have a choice._
> 
>  
> 
> _What if you did have a choice?_
> 
>  
> 
> _You could save my life?_
> 
>  
> 
> _No; I have no power over life. But I can make it so you don't die_

The scent of Harold is all over the laptop bag, but the cultists aren’t coming clean about where he is or why they have his things. Since they’re hostile and not thralls, she can only pick up surface thoughts: fear of her, and pain; loyalty to The Order; the current goal of capturing and returning this one—

That’s odd. It’s like the thought crumbled to dust right as she was sifting through it. Has The Order begun teaching its adherents some techniques for fighting off telepathy? If so, it’s a technique she’s never encountered before today.

She scans the next, and finds nothing useful. _Who is this man?_ She asks him, pushing her thoughts directly into his head because he’s almost unconscious already. _Why were you trying to capture him?_

All she gets is a kind of blank confusion.

The apparent leader is less damaged from their one-sided fight; she’d merely broken his legs. Now she gets in his face: “Who is this man? Why were you trying to capture him?”

He stares at her, as if not even hearing the question.

Reconsidering, she tries, “Why were you in this alley?”

The cultist blinks, looks around. “They sent me out to… no, they went the other way…” She picks up on his confusion; he’s trying to reason things out himself, though he’s quickly settling into the conviction that they’re out here chasing the people who snuck into ‘their’ library, and the surface images in his brain confirm that Harold and John had been there.

But not their captive, oddly enough. Not the one they’ve chased down and attacked. In the cultist’s thoughts, the man he’d been holding just seconds ago is nowhere to be found.

How odd.

Still, if she spends too long trying to puzzle this out, it’ll be too late for the man at her feet. The blood scent is delightfully fresh in her lungs, invigorating even before she’s had a chance to taste it, but this much, seeping out across the concrete… not a lot of time left. The man’s pulse is so low that even she can barely hear it.

With the cultists dealt with for the moment—three of them still alive, should she need more answers from them—she kneels, and gently cradles the man’s head in her hands. He’s too far gone to look at her, let alone to speak.

Just as well that she’s got other options.

 

 _Where is Harold?_ the woman asks, and it takes Elias a moment to realize that the voice is in his head and not in his ears. A flash of the Library, the hope of his friends escaping, the last moment he saw them alive—all information he wouldn’t willingly share… but he feels her reaction, a cross between worry and relief, and realizes that she just picked up on his thoughts.

 _Harold is a friend, then?_ She confirms, and picks up on his ‘answer’ before he’s even aware that he’s given one. Of course Harold is a friend. He’s only got the three friends left.

 _You’re dying,_ she says, her voice quiet in his mind, no strong emotion behind it, just stating a fact. He almost chuckles: As if he didn’t know that. Just a little while longer… it’s not as hard as he would’ve thought, the dying…

 _Do you want to die?_ she asks, more curious than distressed by the notion.

 _Doesn’t look like I have a choice,_ he thinks back, weakly. He’s encountered any number of anomalous items that could save his life, but none of them are nearby, and there isn’t time to fetch one, or to bring him to the ones that are too big to move.

 _What if you did have a choice?_ she returns.

It’s so hard to keep pulling in breaths; each breath is shallower than the last. _You could save my life?_ He asks, barely able to grasp at the lifeline she may be offering.

 _No,_ she says. _I have no power over life. But I could make it so you don’t die. The decision lies with you._

_Why… give me… the choice?_

_John and Harold are friends. And they’ve both lost too many friends already. But I’m too late to save you any other way… and I won’t turn you without your consent._

_Turn me?_ Oh. Of course; he knows what she is now, although he’s never encountered one like her before. He should have known that they’d be more than just myths. _What… what would I be…_

He can’t put together the right words; his mind is going. But she answers his intention for him in a string of mental pictures, more awareness than imagery: drinking blood, and finding human food disgusting; heightened senses, which make direct sunlight painful; being aware of the emotions of others, an overwhelming swirl of sensation. Being hunted, and not merely by the Foundation. And, on top of all that, the woman—Zoe—holding power over him: drawing energy from their union, dipping into his secrets at will, forcing him to do her bidding. And the awareness that if she dies, he will die right along with her.

 _No worse than dying now,_ he thinks, with what little awareness he has left. And he’s already hunted. He can adjust to the blood, to staying clear of direct sunlight, but the hold she would have over him…

He thinks of Anthony, and Bruce, and not knowing if they ever made it to an afterlife, given how they died. Not wanting to move on from this life without having done absolutely everything he could possibly do to possibly bring them back… or, while waiting to run across such a solution, doing absolutely everything he possibly can to help Harold, or find a way to get Nathan back into human form.

He’s not ready to let go of the possibilities just yet.

 _It will hurt,_ her voice says in his mind, neither compassionate nor glorying in the knowledge. _Worse than any pain you have ever known._

It could hardly hurt worse than the moment he’d realized that he’d lost Anthony for good. Or, rather, a moment later, when he’d known for sure that his friend’s sacrifice had been in vain.

 _Do it,_ he asserts, wordlessly in his own mind. He’ll get through it, like he’s had to get through everything else in his life.

 _Today begins your unlife,_ she says, as her fangs sink into his neck, though he’s too far gone to even feel the pain or the growing cold as the rest of his blood leaves his body.

Then there’s a touch at his lips, something wet and warm and salty flowing into his slack mouth, enough to choke him if he had the strength left to cough or even to breathe. _Swallow,_ the concept comes to him, and he does his best, barely aware of anything but the warmth, the salty turning sweet on his tongue, the growing heat of the blood in his mouth, flushing through his body, until his entire being is filled with the desire for more, for nothing more than that blood and he’s sucking it in greedily, suffused with ecstasy, with—

He’s never had a migraine, but this must be what one feels like, his head about to explode; his lungs feel tight, burning, a total lack of air as his body convulses and locks up. He can’t move, can’t see; the world is falling away into nothing but sudden, bitter agony—

 _Your body is dying;_ her voice comes into his head, clearer than before, brighter. _Most people don’t get to feel it happen. But each of us has to go through this, and get to the other side._

He almost can’t make sense of the words, his world awash in nothing but pain and panic. Trapped in his flesh, he can’t even writhe, and that might be the dying or the paralysis drug and maybe that’s going to interfere, maybe he’ll be paralyzed forever now, unable to move and unable to die—

 _These kind of drugs can’t affect you now,_ Zoe’s voice says, a little amused. _Give it a moment and you’ll be fine. Just keep your eyes closed._

As if he could open them. This divorced from his senses, he can’t tell moments from eternity, but he tries to cling to her voice in his head, to her assurance that everything was going to be alright, that he’s—

And then it’s blinding, though not with sight: a rushing mob of sounds all breaking through to him at once, overlaid with the scent of death and blood and sweat and urine, the stink of fear and panic, of fabric softener and detergent, ozone and nail polish, alcohol and Harold’s designer cologne (and he can separate the mix of scents that makes it, though he’s not sure of the identity of each component), mouldy bread and rotting meat and mustard and olive oil, all of it in the air together and hitting him at once. There’s a rat in the dumpster, chewing at the rotting meat, and he can smell the rat dander, the droppings. The texture of the concrete beneath him feels almost unbearably rough, even through layers of clothing. The cloth itself feels rough-edged, and he’s aware of the uneven seams against his skin.

He can make out voices, and knows how distant they are, around the corner of the alley and a block and a half down, elevated on some balcony, one voice fearful and hushed, the other angry, discussing the gunshots, already on the phone with the cops. He can make out the sound of the other end of that phone call, the dispatcher getting information. There are other voices, more distant, a mix of alarmed and apathetic, used to violence.

And the swish of cotton and denim, the sound of feet rushing around, but hesitant, not knowing which way to go. Barked orders. Anger, fear, determination, excitement, they hit him like the edge of a blast wave, growing in strength as the cultists draw near.

Before Elias can even struggle to his feet, Zoe is lifting him—not helping him up, but taking him into her arms, cradled like a child, and his eyes dart open as he flails a bit, surprised and suddenly dizzy. Her grip is firm, though, and they’re already in the air, the laptop bag on her shoulder as she glides up to the rooftop, well out of sight before he hears the next wave of cultists enter the alley far beneath them. The emotions fade beneath them, until he can just barely make out the edges of the anger, the fear, the shock and horror as they find the bodies.

 _I kill to feed, or to survive, not merely to protect my secrets._ He hears her before he quite realizes that he’d been wondering about the wounded cultists still left in the alley, about the information they might give to the group. There’s too much going on in his head right now, an awareness of everything around him, the details not muddy and indistinct but clear and sharp and biting; it’s hard to focus on any one thing, pull it out from the whole.

_Later on, you’ll learn to control the amount of stimulation you pick up from your surroundings, but I know it can be overwhelming at first. When we’re safe, I’ll shut down your awareness for a while._

Unable to even string words together in his own mind, he clings to her weakly, as she descends on the other side of the roof and begins to float along in the shadows under the eaves. Before long, she alights on a balcony and sets Elias on his feet, guiding his hand to the railing. As a human, he might have thought it smooth, but his new senses pick up on every burr, and he shudders in the wake of all this _information._

When he dares to open his eyes, the world is oddly blurry… through his glasses. He yanks them off, squinting against the sharpness of the world, as Zoe brushes past him and into the apartment. _Her_ apartment, he is aware, not because it smells like her (although it does, and the scent surrounds and comforts him), but as if the tie between them has attuned him to an awareness of the things that belong to her. The way that he, now, belongs to her.

She lays the laptop bag on a glass coffee table and turns to regard Elias as he cautiously enters, not exactly unsteady on his feet, or in danger of collapse, but assaulted by every new sensation as he moves, like getting splashed in the face with frigid saltwater, wave upon wave without let-up, without a chance to draw breath.

While Zoe slides the door shut, muffling the awareness of the outside world just slightly, Elias finds his way to the nearest chair and collapses into it, staring up at his new mistress as she slides a heavy velvet curtain across the doorway, going that much further to block out the world. Enough sunlight bleeds through that it’s not entirely dark, but Zoe makes no attempt to turn on the lights—neither of them need light to see.

Before Elias can quite gather himself enough to ask any questions, she’s suddenly there, towering over him like a goddess, focusing his awareness on her as the light and sounds and scents around him drain away. Her eyes are an unearthly turquoise, glowing pale as the world calms, until finally Elias can take a deep breath and feel, a little, like he’s come back to himself.

Then she takes the chair opposite his, crosses one leg sensuously over the other, and regards him with a gaze so piercing that he can’t even meet her eyes. “You’ll have questions, of course,” she says, relaxing into the space that she’s claimed for herself.

Elias pauses, considers. Now that he’s past the worst of it—a little low on energy, but otherwise feeling much better than he has since before he left the Library—he’s starting to reclaim his faculties. This new arrangement is… unprecedented, some of the details beyond his grasp right now, and yet… he can at least work out a bit of what’s happened. What’s going to happen. What he needs to know, in the short term, and what he might start digging into, in the long term, though…

...there won’t be any hiding from his mistress, will there? His secrets are no longer his own.

“True enough,” Zoe murmurs. “It’ll be a while before you come into your power enough for the bond to fade. Probably a few years. For the moment, your mind is an open book to me. I could avoid reading it, if I cared to, but that would actually be difficult for me, and I see no reason to try." She stretches luxuriously. “You made the choice; you’re mine until I care to release you, or you grow strong enough to resist me on your own.”

There’s an awareness behind that statement: Release will happen only when he’s strong enough. Breaking the bond between them while he’s still weak would kill him after all.

He regards her. So far as his senses can tell—the senses now limited to something approximating the human norm—she’s a human woman, at the peak of her strength and beauty, revelling in the awareness of her own physical assets. Nothing about her seems off, or otherworldly, nothing hinting that she might be more than she seems.

“Not everything that is otherworldly is obvious to the naked eye,” she rejoins. “In point of fact, the better ones seem not to be. It’s quite pleasant, you know, being able to flit through your ephemeral society without being accosted for not being… _quite_ … one of you.”

She still regarded him as human? Even though she’d already changed, already… killed him? But before he could work out the implications, she was laughing.

“Oh, the human love for clear categories that they can wrap their minds around. You’ll grow past that, in time.”

“Am I still _human,_ then?”

“Human mind, barely out of its cocoon. Not yet able to master its own flesh. Still trapped in the old way of thinking. It will take a while for you to be closer to the likes of me than to your former self.”

“‘A while’ in terms of what? Years? Decades? Centuries?”

She grins, flashing her fangs. “As if we were so constrained to time. But I don’t expect you’re ready to think like that, so best we leave that be.” Then she sobers. “You’re weak, of course, but you could travel. John and Harold are in danger?”

The sudden realization doesn’t flood him with dread and adrenaline like he might’ve expected. Even so, he vaults to his feet, digging out his phone… but then he hesitates. If they’re still running, then calling Harold’s phone right now might be a distraction. If they’re _hiding_ —or, even worse, if John’s been captured and Harold is hiding, either to escape or to rescue John—then it could even give their location away.

If he were a hacker like Harold, he could probably have found a way to activate Harold’s microphone, figure out if it were safe to call in. Though, of course, it’s far more likely that Harold’s phone is protected against that sort of maneuver. They’re both paranoid, and neither without cause; there’s a reason they don’t store each other’s contact information on anything more hackable than the human brain.

Sighing, he slips the phone back in his pocket and shakes his head. He opens his mouth to explain… but Zoe already knows exactly what he’s been thinking. That’s going to take some getting used to.

“I could track them,” Zoe muses. “But I’d need a starting location, and it’s difficult to use my powers effectively and go unnoticed at the same time, at least during the day. Not the kind of attention I’d like right now.”

“And I have no idea where they are; if I recall Harold’s description of the Library, it’s got entrances throughout most of Manhattan and even parts of Jersey.” He pauses.

“No,” Zoe says with a chuckle and a wave of her hand, “I can’t scry them out.” Not part of her power set, not the type of anomalous items she collects; he’s aware of that as soon as it becomes relevant.

“Well. We can’t do much to help them until we’re in contact again.” He briefly pulls out his phone again to glance at the time. Closing in on 8 AM—and that early hour feels less like a whole day ahead of him and more like being a child again, like being grounded with nothing to do but wait.

“Oh,” Zoe purrs, getting to her feet, “I’m sure we can find a way to pass the time.” _Get up,_ he hears, not sounds or words but awareness of the concept, and as he rises she is there, a breath away, close enough to surround him with her scent alone. With his new senses muted, it’s the one scent that comes through crystal-clear: Zoe. _Mistress._

In the half-light of the apartment, she smiles at him, and brushes her fingers along his jawline, her other hand sliding sensuously down his chest; his breath catches as he realizes her intent. Swallowing, he catches her hands. “Zoe, I… I just met you. Not even an hour ago.”

“And yet we’re bound closer than any human lovers ever could be.” _Release me,_ and he does, without any decision or hesitation. She caresses his cheek, and when he shifts to step away she stops him with a silent _Stay._ “Why do you resist?”

“You’re young enough to be my daughter!”

She blinks in surprise. “What, this?” she asks, stretching one hand away and turning it, as if examining it for the first time. “It’s merely appealing to the senses. But you humans are bound to the rhythm of your lives ticking away… small wonder you’ve never considered an alternative.” She huffs. “Soon enough, you’ll learn how to bend your own form to your will. But in the meantime, perhaps this will seem more reasonable to you?”

In seconds, her skin ripples and reforms, and when Elias meets her eyes again they are older, a little dulled as if with the weight of years. But it’s as much an illusion as the younger version—her body isn’t her, and he knows that now intuitively. Yet how old can she possibly—

Her irritation surges through him, briefly, but she responds, with imagery:

_…stone roads to move armies, stone troughs to move water, stone vending machines to dispense water that priests claimed to be blessed by God._

_And Zoe—and others of her kind—appearing on Earth, from elsewhere (an awareness he can’t grasp, almost blinding in its intensity), desperately hungry at first, and then hunted, separated, fleeing. Those same priests who tried to peddle “holy water” proclaimed the interlopers to be “demons,” and set their followers on the warpath against the things they couldn’t understand._

_The ones who survived the first wave learned to hide, or to change, to mimic the short-lived creatures enough to fool their limited senses and hide in plain sight, until the years moved on and no one remained to remember their original forms._

_And Zoe, in her exile, finding unexpected pleasures, until she began to seek them out, learning how to trade for them, the skills and information that humans valued. Throughout the centuries, as the kingdoms rose and fell, she made companions, and lost them, and made more._

“Not that I stuck around to go through all the intervening time,” she says with a sigh, “but it’s a decent metric, since you need one.”

 _You were never human,_ he thinks dazedly, no longer so sure that he’s understood her nature correctly.

“Oh, but I haven’t been like _this_ forever, either,” she counters. “As I said, we all go through death to reach this state; no one starts out this way. That girl back in Rome is more like me than she was like her original self, before the change… but I’ve also learned a number of tricks, in all that time.” Sauntering backwards, she smirks at him. “Would you like to find out some of the tricks I’ve learned?”

Turning, she heads for the bedroom, bidding him _Come_ , and he’s following the order before he can stop to think about it. He’s torn between resisting—he needs to know more, to understand what she wants from him, he can’t just surrender himself this way—and relaxing into the call of his mistress, following her into the dark, into a room scented with cinnamon and oranges.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s still not sure about this, but it drives out what little resistance he had left. When she pulls him into a kiss, he’s there with her this time, giving as well as taking, lost in a sensation he hasn’t felt in… decades, surely, and never like this.
> 
> Elias has only had the pleasure of a few women in his time, none of them particularly meaningful; he’s taken opportunities as they’ve come, but never had enough experience to figure out what he really wants from a woman. So when Zoe’s curiosity thrums within him—what do you like, what do you want?—he’s momentarily at a loss.
> 
> I’ll take the lead, then, she says, amused, and he’s reminded of her experience, gleaned across centuries.

Once he’s inside, Zoe closes the door, and the darkness is complete: no windows, no lights of any kind. Except he can still make out everything in the room, every detail… but they pale next to the luminous turquoise of her eyes as she slides around in front of him, her hands grasping his collar, drawing him close.

A shiver passes through his body; he _wants_ her, wants this union… or _part_ of him does, and it’s more than just his physical body responding to her advances. Still, he’s torn, and a little unmoored by what’s going on; by the way her thoughts keep overriding his better instincts.

“I don’t want this,” he protests, but softly, not even sure himself.

“No,” Zoe breathes out, her breath cool against his cheek, “you want blood. The urge isn’t strong yet, but it’s growing.” _If we don’t deal with it soon, it’ll overwhelm you._

So soon? He hesitates, tries to look inwards, to be aware of himself—like he’s always tried to be, even when it hurts. But he doesn’t… it doesn’t _feel_ like bloodthirst.

She nips at his lower lip. _And how would you even know?_ Her thought is amused, and conveys the idea of him as a baby, not yet able to grasp what he hungers for, what the sensation of hunger even means. It’s obvious, when she puts it that way: He’s got no basis for comparison.

As her hands slide down his neck, under his jacket, she brings his mind back to that young woman in Rome. He sees images, sense-memories: a stall in the _Forum Cuppedenis,_ where one year she’d been a customer, and the next a worker, drawing profitable attention with her exotic looks… and three years after that, she was running a stall on her own, her former master now in thrall. Even restricting herself to the surface thoughts, she’d picked up on the human love for the exotic, the unknown, and she stocked the booth with foreign delicacies, earning a comfortable living while drawing out more information about the appetites of humans.

Later, she’d spent years as a temple prostitute, getting straight to the heart of human desire; when she felt that it was time to move on, she’d join a caravan and travelled the world, paying her way with sex as much as any other currency.

_I didn’t realize, at first,_ she says, mouthing Elias’s collarbone until he’s panting, gasping at the sensation, _but I didn’t need blood as much as usual._ The hunger she’d been reborn with could be sated, for a while at least, with sex.

_It’s life,_ she responds to his unformed question. _Blood sustains the life of the animal; sex spreads that life, creating new creatures. It’s part of the life force of humanity._ And her other finding: that sex between vampires is still effective, even though it’s weaker. _We can’t spread life that way, but it’ll help. If you let it._ She pushes his jacket back off his shoulders and drops it to the floor, then gets to work on his shirt buttons, kissing him between each one. _Unless you’d prefer to go on the hunt first. We could head back and retrieve a cultist or two… get you a little food you don’t have to feel bad about killing._

He’s still not sure about this, still troubled by the thought of how much control she has over everything he does now… but her arguments are making enough sense that it drives out what little resistance he had left. When she pulls him into a kiss, he’s there with her this time, giving as well as taking, lost in a sensation he hasn’t felt in… decades, surely, and never like _this._ His hands brush over the silky fabric that covers her skin, and one hand clutches the back of her neck as the kiss grows more heated, their tongues finally meeting, fervently exploring each other’s mouths.

There’s a presence in Elias’s mind, a build-up of sudden pressure, and he shivers, breaking off the kiss and holding Zoe by the shoulders, looking her over. She’s… flushed, her cheeks tinged pink, lips swollen, eyes dilated far beyond what’s normal for human eyes.

He wonders vaguely what he looks like, and suddenly he can see himself through her lusting eyes: strong and brave and still full of the energy that she lost countless eons ago. She’s fixated not on his aging body or its infirmities; she couldn’t care less what he looks like on the outside. It’s all just meaningless flesh, and he feels her assurance that, before long, he’ll be reforming his body as readily as he might get a haircut or change his shirt.

“Whatever you desire,” she murmurs, pulling his shirt out of his trousers. Her warm hands slide around behind his back, tugging the fabric down his arms and away; as it falls to the floor, she kisses him again, her hands beginning to tease a downward trail from his collarbone to his nipples to his belt.

There’s suddenly too much distance between them, slight as it is, and as she undoes the button on his trousers he grabs her shoulders with both hands and pulls her in tight for another kiss. He can’t smell things as clearly as he could earlier, but still he picks up the remnants of his cologne, barely evident under the light incense of her room, and the faint sweat of his earlier exertions (and he’s aware, somehow, that he will never sweat again), and the blood that he can smell right through her skin, with his nose this close to the warmth of her neck.

Before he’s even aware of his confusion, she’s nuzzling his neck and answering him: _Yes, we’re still warm, and still have blood. We still can bleed. In these forms, anyway. Good thing, too,_ she says, and presses her hips forward, tight against his erection, and shivers in his arms as he moans.

“I’m going to have to ask you about that whole ‘dying’ thing,” Elias murmurs against her. “Later.”

With a chuckle and a sudden twist, she’s got him between her and the bed, and pushes him down till he’s seated, looking up at her. His hands slide over the soft, silky sheets, giving him a fleeting thought about the high thread count: Harold would approve. And then she’s stepping in between his legs, pulling all his thoughts back to the moment. Her fingertips toy with his nipples as he reaches up behind her to unzip her dress, and then she steps back and lets it slip from her shoulders, pooling at her feet.

Reaching behind her back, she unclasps her bra and drops it to the floor, followed by her black lacy panties.

“I do believe you’re overdressed,” she murmurs as she draws close again, reaching for his trousers. With one hand, she tugs down the zip, and with the other she reaches inside, tracing the outline of his cock through his boxers. He groans and trembles at her touch, lying back and raising his hips to let her pull off his last stitch of clothing before he scoots back up the bed, and she follows, predatory, a tigress prowling over him.

Elias has only had the pleasure of a few women in his time, none of them particularly meaningful; he’s taken opportunities as they’ve come, but never had enough experience to figure out what he really _wants_ from a woman. So when Zoe’s curiosity thrums within him— _what do you like, what do you want?_ —he’s momentarily at a loss.

_I’ll take the lead, then,_ she says, amused, and he’s reminded of her experience, gleaned across centuries and all the major continents. If she brought out all her tricks tonight, she’d probably kill him.

Her amusement at that thought is even greater, and she crawls up over his body and straddles his hips, trapping his cock between their bodies. Her hand brushes through the dusting of hair on his chest, her fingers trailing around his nipples, eliciting a shiver of desire.

Cupping her breasts, he squeezes them gently, pinching her nipples between forefinger and thumb—she gives a delighted gasp, shivering under his touch. _Yes._ She grinds against his cock a little, and then he’s feeling her reactions from the inside again, the jolts of pleasure he’s giving her, the feel of her clit when she pushes it against the hard heat of his erection, giving him ideas about what she wants from him next.

Groaning, he pushes her to the side, rolls them both over until he’s on top of her, sucking gently on her nipple. For a moment, he rests his head lightly on her chest, able to hear—and feel—the beating of her heart.

Kissing his way down her body, he makes it to the top of her thighs, and presses his nose into her neatly trimmed pubic hair, inhaling the musky scent along with lingering traces of her citrus shower gel. She’s wet; he feels that from the inside, too, before he slides his hand between her thighs and presses two fingers up inside her, making them both gasp.

He doesn’t have to check in with her, or ask if he’s doing it right, if she wants him to try something else or slow down; they’re in sync, now, both riding the pleasure of the other as much as their own. He parts her lips and flicks his tongue over her clit, curling his fingers inside her as he begins sucking, as she begins writhing beneath him, both of them panting, both of their arousals swelling, welcoming, yearning.

When they realize it’s time to go further, Zoe tilts her hips up and Elias covers her body with his own, barely thinking of it as his own anymore; it’s her flesh and his flesh, coming together as he slides smoothly into her, the meeting of their desires. She nuzzles along his jawline, making small movements with her hips, accentuating his thrusts, the building rhythm of their bodies and breath matching pace. Pulling him down to her, she sucks at the side of his neck, just above his jugular, making him groan as he feels her fangs descend, not yet breaking the skin. The tension is coiling up within both of them, yearning for release, his balls drawing up tight and ready, her passage clenching in around him.

They’re so close—so very close—panting and straining to reach their shared climax until finally Elias’s orgasm crashes through him; Zoe bites down hard the same moment, intensifying their pleasure. There’s nothing to do but lie there, riding out the waves of ecstasy that ripple through them.

For a while, they stay that way, his weight on her body a pleasure to them both. Then Elias kisses her again, and rolls off of her to lie beside her, breathing deep. He can smell the blood on her lips, on his neck, but it’s not that much; he’s aware that she took only enough to heighten the sensation of their joining, and the wounds have already closed.

The room is quiet except for the sound of their breathing returning to normal. For Elias, everything is bright and crisp and clear, like a drug high, like the few moments in his life when he’s known with precise detail exactly what he needs to do to achieve his goals. He’s Zoe’s, now, and the bond between them runs deep; he’s opened up to her completely, given up everything, and she’s given it back to him fourfold. Nothing will come between them now. The clarity is intoxicating.

Gracefully getting to her feet, Zoe turns and holds out her hand to Elias. He joins her, surprised at how energized he feels, how ready for more, whatever she’s willing to give him.

Chuckling, she pulls him toward the bathroom. _Let’s not overdo it,_ she says in his mind, her gentle amusement flowing through him like honey, like golden sunlight. _But perhaps a shower might be nice._

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on Valentines day which happens to be Enrico Colantoni's (Elias) Birthday

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[fan art] The Fate of Elias](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18557944) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida)




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